Junkies: EB Drove Home Without Brakes

In the land of ‘woe is me,’ Eric Bickel of the Sports Junkies is king.

E.B. was put in the incomprehensible situation of having to drive his Chevy Tahoe to work Tuesday instead of his BMW, which was decommissioned by his wife in a fender bender.

“It doesn’t have Bluetooth!” E.B. exclaimed.

For shame.

What he couldn’t predict, was what would happen when he tried to drive the car home after the show.

“As I’m approaching Martin Luther King (Jr. Highway) out of the parking lot, I go to slow down, and you know how normally when you press your brakes you barely have to press it halfway and then you stop?” E.B. asked. “Well, how about I had mine all the way on the floor and I wasn’t stopping.”

For those unfamiliar with the location of the radio station, the only access point to the Capital Beltway or Route 50 — E.B.’s only roads home — requires a treacherous left turn across four lanes of traffic on MLK, as traffic whizzes by, usually at a conservative 50 mph.

His immediate reaction went something like, “Oh my God! I don’t have any brakes!”

E.B. said as his bulky Tahoe crept closer to the rapidly approaching deathtrap of MLK, he considered jamming it in park.

Upon stopping inches in front of the traffic blazing past him to narrowly avoid what just moments before seemed like his impending death, Bickel realized he’d then have to wait for Triple-A.

Unless …

“So I said, ‘You know what? Rolling the dice! I’m just going to drive home, on the Beltway with 10 percent braking,’” E.B. said. “I literally was driving about 35 mph in the right lane. I tried to keep myself about 500 yards behind the closest car, so if I had to stop, I had cushion.”

But it wasn’t enough that he was driving with paper-thin brakes and infuriating other drivers by cruising at an elderly pace. Nope.

He had to tweet about it … as it was happening.

So as to not run the risk of further endangering himself, he made maybe the first smart decision of the whole ordeal.

“I said I’ll call Drab and tell him to tweet what’s going on.”

“So it wasn’t important for you to get somewhere safely? It was important for you to let all your followers know what’s going on,” Lurch joned.